


Talk Tonight

by RapidashPatronus



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: F/M, I swear I can't write anything but angst, anyway it's after scarif, but that's about all they are, so yay they're alive, sorry - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-11
Updated: 2017-04-11
Packaged: 2018-10-17 18:44:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,213
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10599936
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RapidashPatronus/pseuds/RapidashPatronus
Summary: It is not the life together she would have imagined, had she imagined, but it is a life together, which is more than she had once thought possible.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Rebelcaptain Appreciation Week - Day 2: Song Day (Writing prompt: Comfort)
> 
> I've been meaning to write this for ages. It's based on the song "Talk Tonight" by Oasis which I heard for the first time in ages back in January and just THIS happened in my head. Sorry. It's angsty. Angst is all I can do.

The smell of food fills the tiny house, warm and inviting.

Jyn has never really cooked much, in her life. She has lived on rations - military or prison - or what she could steal. She wouldn't even bother now, if it were just for herself. But she isn't giving up on this, and she puts the meal down gently in front of Cassian, watching his face carefully.

Which is worse? The helplessness that colours his features as he surveys her attempts, or the knowledge that it causes him such guilt? She doesn't know.

He shakes his head, barely perceptibly, looks away.

"I'm sorry..." She knows he is. "I'm still not hungry." He rubs a finger listlessly against the edge of the dish. "I'm sorry, it looks great..."

She sits opposite him and folds her hands on the table, saying nothing.

At length, he sighs, and starts to eat. It is enough for her.

 

The next day, they walk. The sharp charcoal rocks, the wide brown beaches, the grey-green fields are as rain-washed of colour as she remembers. What enterprise she had had in mind when she brought him here, she can't quite remember. Perhaps it was to do with giving him all of her that she could.

He walks beside her as she points to the things she recognises. Over there: an outcrop where she and Stormy had once laid siege to a great band of robbers and had emerged, against all the odds, victorious, with the avowed devotion and allegiance of the reformed Thief King. And over there - was it there? She thinks so - the cave where they were very nearly overwhelmed by the enemy and she even got a cut on her shin to prove it, and Mama thought it looked like she'd just grazed it on a ledge but Papa knew it was a real battle scar.

She narrates in snatches, annotating the landscape at intervals with the geology of memory, permitting him to listen, or not, as he chooses. He pulls his coat a little closer around him against the wind and walks on beside her wordlessly.

 

Sometimes she thinks she reaches him, sometimes not. She has learnt not to trouble herself with the question. Not to struggle with him when he is distant from her. Not to smother him with enthusiasm at each rare glimpse of light.

Constancy is a skill hard won. She has made mistakes.

Early on, the sight of a rare smile had drawn her near. She had brushed his fringe aside, tentatively, then kissed him, at last, at last. He had slipped his arms around her, opened his mouth, gripped her shoulder blades. She had flown at the sensation. But her hands had slid too keenly under his shirt, her hips pressed too greedily against his legs, her sigh too eager; his arms had fallen from her as he turned away, defeated. She stood before him, messy and ridiculous with shame.

Some nights later, when he had come to her, all hard touch and furious defiance, it had ripped her heart to refuse him. She watched him freeze, desolate, before he had sunk in horror to cry on her neck. She stroked his hair as her own tears fell silently onto the pillow.

 

There’s a hopper twice a day to the nearest settlement; it stops at the end of the back field just over the ridge. She remembers taking it with Mama when they needed supplies. They could manage for another day on what they have, but – she is ashamed – she needs a moment, now and then.

She goes over to him, hiking her bag strap up onto her shoulder. He’s staring listlessly at a holo of something monotonously uninspiring.

“I’m going out,” she tells him, and waits.

His hand goes to his belt, unbuckling it and slipping it out of the carriers. He hands it to her without looking up. She puts it in her bag and leaves.

 

She had thought never to be loved as she knew he had loved her, when she had had no time to love him. Honour binds her now to repay him, regardless of the damage it might cause to a heart that had learned of love too late to treasure it when whole.

That he loves her still, she usually finds it within herself to believe. That he needs her, she has no question. It is not the life together she would have imagined, had she imagined, but it is a life together, which is more than she had once thought possible.

 

The market, such as it is, consists of three stalls. There aren’t many people to sell to on Lah’mu. But farmers trade with each other for what they haven’t space or energy or skill to sustain on their own homesteads. And today, at one stall, a woman is selling plant pigments, brushes of animal hair, landscape paintings. Taken by a strange fancy, Jyn finds herself bartering for the paints.

 

When she returns to the house, Cassian hasn’t moved. The fresh air and change of scenery, though, have given her new vigour. She swings her bag onto the table, hands him back his belt and sits beside him.

“I got you something,” she says, as brightly as she can. She touches his arm, against her better judgement, but he doesn’t move away.

He looks at her. It’s a better day today.

“I got you these –” She drags the bag over and pulls out the paints, brushes and flimsi-book. “I thought maybe we could see how awful we are at painting.”

Cassian smiles and puts his belt back on. “Ok,” he says.

 

He’s got more natural style than she has, but she soon learns he doesn’t finish his work. All the same, he seems more focused than he has for a while. She reminds herself not to set too much store by it. There have been good days before. There have also been days when he has implored her to let him go, when he has screamed at her to leave him, when he has walked out with no real destination in mind, and she simply has followed. His brighter moments signify little as a trend, and when he is unreachable, he will return to her in time. She has passed the days of shouting back or trying to reason when he turns on her, or of offering bracing encouragement when he seems better. Her response is always the same: look in his eyes and let him see her, still not going.

 

“Don’t stay up too late,” she says, handing him a mug and moving off towards her bed. He catches her hand, halting her.

She turns.

 _Please – thank you – sorry –_ nothing that his face tells her he wants to say is new or surprising to her.

But he pulls her back to sit beside him and sets the mug aside.

“Sorry,” he begins. “You’re probably tired. You can go to bed.”

“It’s alright,” she tells him, measuring him carefully, uncertain.

Finally, he leans his head down onto her shoulder and breathes deeply. “Can we just… talk, tonight?”

His hand in hers is warm and still.

Later, as the dawn starts to edge through the window, Jyn remembers a word she thinks she learned from him.

Hope.


End file.
